I moved towards the door, and a female reporter in a tailor-made skirt, with her hair cut short, asked me in a clear, sweet voice, “Are you a Jewess-Catholic-Protestant-Mohammedan-Buddhist-Atheist-Zoroaster-Theist- or-Deist?” I stood still, rooted to the spot in bewilderment. She had said all that in a breath, accenting the syllables haphazard, and making of the whole one word so wildly incoherent that my impression was that I was not in safety near this strange, gentle person. I must have looked uneasy, and as my eyes fell on an elderly lady who was talking gaily to a little group of people, she came to my rescue, saying in very good French, “This young lady is asking you, Madame, whether you are of the Jewish religion or whether you are a Catholic, a Protestant, a Mohammedan, a Buddhist, an Atheist, a Zoroastrian, a Theist, or a Deist.” I sank down on a couch. “Oh, Heavens!” I exclaimed, “will it be like this in all the cities I visit?” “Oh no,” answered Jarrett placidly; “your interviews will be wired throughout America.” “What about the mussels?” I thought to myself, and then in an absent- minded way I answered, “I am a Catholic, Mademoiselle.” “A Roman Catholic, or do you belong to the Orthodox Church?” she asked. I jumped up from my seat, for she bored me beyond endurance, and a very young man then approached timidly. “Will you allow me to finish my sketch, Madame?” he asked. I remained standing, my profile turned towards him at his request. When he had finished I asked to see what he had done, and, perfectly unabashed, he handed me his horrible drawing of a skeleton with a curly wig. I tore the sketch up and threw it at him, but the following day that horror appeared in the papers, with a disagreeable inscription beneath it. Fortunately I was able to speak seriously about my art with a few honest and intelligent journalists, but twenty-five years ago reporters’ paragraphs were more appreciated in America than serious articles, and the public, very much less literary then than at present, always seemed ready to echo the turpitudes invented by reporters hard up for copy. I should think that no creature in the world, since the invention of reporting, has ever had as much to endure as I had during that first tour. The basest calumnies were circulated by my enemies long before I arrived in America, there was all the treachery of the friends of the Comédie, and even of my own admirers, who hoped that I should not succeed on my tour, so that I might return more quickly to the fold, humiliated, calmed down, and subdued. Then there were the exaggerated announcements invented by my _impresario_ Abbey and my representative Jarrett. These announcements were often outrageous and always ridiculous; but I did not know their real source until long afterwards, when it was too late—much too late—to undeceive the public, who were fully persuaded that I was the instigator of all these inventions. I therefore did not attempt to undeceive them.